Baseball's A-Rod Victory Is a Pyrrhic One

When an arbitration panel Saturday handed down a season-long suspension of Alex Rodriguez for his alleged involvement with performance-enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball got a rare victory in a venue that has frustrated the lords of the realm since the early 1970s. After more than four decades of drubbings delivered by a series of arbitrators, baseball finally triumphed over a star player, and the powerful players union, in a high-stakes case.

Every victory comes with a price, though. And this one is steep. Baseball's...